China, US to increase military cooperation in bid to improve trust

China and the United States are increasing military-to-military exchanges in a bid to improve mutual trust and cooperation, according to Chinese Ambassador to the US Cui Tiankai.

Joseph Dunford, the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, will visit China next month. Meanwhile, the joint staff of the two militaries will hold their first dialogue in November.

In the inaugural China-US Diplomatic and Security Dialogue held in Washington last month, the two sides agreed that the defense ministers of the two countries will visit each other at an early date.

Meanwhile, the Chinese Navy will participate in the Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) naval exercises for the third time in 2018.

"It is encouraging to see that China-US mil-to-mil relations have steadily moved forward in the right direction," Cui said on Thursday evening at a reception at the embassy to mark the 90th anniversary of the founding of the People's Liberation Army.

He said military-to-military relations should be an important stabilizing factor in overall China-US relations.

The two militaries had high-level, candid and in-depth exchange and reached important consensus to promote steady progress in military-to-military relations, according to Cui.

He described the two recent dialogues between China and the US - the Diplomatic and Security Dialogue, and the Comprehensive Economic Dialogue - as "successful".

The two talks are part of the four-track dialogue mechanism agreed to by President Xi Jinping and US President Donald Trump when they met at Mar-a-Lago in Florida in April in their first summit. The two other dialogues - the law enforcement and cyber security dialogue and the social and people-to-people dialogue - are expected in the coming months.

In Florida, Trump accepted Xi's invitation to visit China later this year. Cui said the meetings between the two leaders in Florida in April and in Hamburg early this month were both "productive".

"Today, the world is undergoing profound changes. Yet cooperation on the basis of mutual respect and mutual benefit shall remain the defining feature of China-US relations," he said.